Social Media, Blogs and RSS

Event Detail

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Gender and Group Decision-Making: Eliciting and Acting Upon Expertise

Katie Coffman, Assistant Professor, Ohio State
University

From faculty committees and student projects to corporate boards
and firms, many decisions are made by groups rather than by
individuals. In these environments, the quality of the group
decision depends upon the most knowledgeable members volunteering
their opinions to the group. In this project, I use a lab
experiment to explore the factors that predict an individual's
decision to contribute her idea to the group. I find that gender
stereotypes drive substantial inefficiencies in contribution. Women
under-contribute ideas in stereotypically male domains, while men
under-contribute ideas in stereotypically female domains.
Furthermore, because of these patterns of under-contribution,
groups often have difficultly recognizing their talent: female
(male) experts in stereotypically male (female) domains are
significantly less likely to be correctly identified as most
knowledgeable within their group. Interventions aimed at reducing
under-contribution by men and women are ineffective; in particular,
providing feedback about members' relative strengths and weaknesses
does not increase the likelihood that an expert contributes her
opinion to the group.